Boon sighed. "This not good, hor."
"Not good lah."
Boon sucked in his breath. "Nicholas. What if they leave? They could just pack up and go overnight. Without paying." A stomachache of a look passed over his face.
"I know."
Boon stood up. "Maybe I can swap rooms with the Malays tonight. Since we only got the two rooms at the bungalow, maybe they can stay in my room and I can stay in theirs. I dun mind cold."
"Are you kidding? You sleep on a 5cm mattress in a tiny computer room."
"How about your room?"
"My room is the same size as their toilet room."
"Oh." Boon sat back down and fiddled with the 'Be Right Back' sign.
Nicholas felt the icy water seep through his shorts.
"Eh, Nicholas. If we have to choose, I say we get rid of the Malays, right or not?"
"What?"
"The Malays. We can move them to another hotel. Sucks lah, but if we lose the aliens..."
"I know, I know. I thought of that already."
"So? We can call up Desmond Chia, see if he got any vacancy or not." He picked up the phone. "I just call to check-check first ah?"
Nicholas frowned. "Wait."
"Wait what wait?"
"Let me think."
Boon put the phone back down. "Think think think. You always want to think only."
But Nicholas didn't answer. He was piecing together the beginnings of an idea.
At 10:35pm that night, the Abduls heard a knock at the door. When they opened it, they found a large basket containing three hot water bottles and two extra sets of towels, blankets and pillows, overlaid with a spray of purple bougainvilleas and a handwritten note. The note said:
"Please accept our sincerest apology apologies. We wish you and your wife good health and a comfortable night. Live long and prosper. Signed, Your Upstairs Neighbors."
At 10:39pm, Mr. Khssyy'g Mrglgrgl opened the door to find a large basket stacked high with hot water bottles, overlaid with a note and three novelty ice cube trays, in which water would freeze in the shapes of animals, numbers, and vehicles. The note said:
"We are sorry for our outburst earlier. Please accept this gift for your children. We apologize, and hope someday to be as gracious, handsome, and financially giving as you. Selamat datang. Signed, Your Downstairs Neighbors."
Nicholas slept well that night.
They mopped the lobby at least twice a day. They blow-dried and sponged off the sofa. For two and a half hours each day, they cleaned the brindlefarbs' room together. They boiled water to refill the hot water bottles, froze water to fill the ice buckets, washed sheets and hung them up to dry in the sun. At night, they ate satay, smoked cigarettes, and slapped at mosquitoes by the ferry pier. The 'Employee Only' room remained empty, except for one day when Nicholas followed some strange sounds and found the littlest brindlefarb locked in fierce competition with Boon's computer.
"Fleep!" said the farb, glaring intensely at the monitor.
"Congratulations."
"FLEEP!"
"Congratulations."
"FLEEP!!"
Nicholas shut off the computer and herded the little eyeball out of the room.
He went through their finances one afternoon, line by line. Boon was right. If they survived this ordeal, they would have five hundred and forty left over at the end just for them. Enough for a trip to Bali and forty dollars in the savings account. A break would be nice, thought Nicholas. For once in their lives, they could be the ones leaving messes and making unreasonable demands.
They defused another disaster on the third day, when the little farbs accidentally trapped the Abduls in their room by freezing the lawn into shards of razor-sharp ice. Boon raced out to the Indian mama store, bought a $25 rug, sliced it into long pieces and laid out a red carpet for the Abduls when they emerged in a cloud of steam, sleepy-eyed and hungry for breakfast.
Whenever he saw the Abduls and the brindlefarbs together, Nicholas's heart threatened to seize up. He and Boon scrambled to keep the stream of mutual gifts flowing each night--five dollars here, two ninety-nine there. A matching pair of blue-and-pink earmuffs for the Malays one night, one giant sunmonocle for Kosong on the next.
The earmuffs, surprisingly, were the harder item to come by.
Nicholas awoke one morning to the sound of Boon banging on his door.
"Nicholas! Eh, Nicholas!"
He leapt out of bed and opened the door.
"What? What happen?"
Boon had a slightly manic look. "We did it! They all checking out today!"
Nicholas felt a slow grin spread across his face. It had been the longest five days of his life, but he had done it. They had done it. Nicholas washed his face, brushed his teeth, combed his hair and was sitting at the counter before 9am. Check-out time was 11.
At 10:59, Kosong and Mr. Abdul came marching up through the back door. Nicholas put his phone away and straightened up.
They did not look pleased.
Mr. Abdul's face was so red it was almost purple. Kosong's gaze could have melted Superman.
"Now listen here," said Mr. Abdul when he saw Nicholas. "You bloody hoaxster." He pointed an accusing finger, holding up his hotel receipt with his other hand.
Kosong held up his receipt too, balancing on one leg.
"How do you explain this price discrepancy?"
Nicholas squeezed his eyes shut. No. No no no no.
"Huh!? How? Speak, man!"
He opened his mouth. "Ahh--"
"And what is this ridiculous surcharge? Fifteen percent? What rubbish is this?"
Nicholas swallowed. Boon had come running once he'd heard shouting--he stood at the front door, his weight resting on the door frame. His eyes reflected everything Nicholas felt.
"Bloody rubbish," said Mr. Abdul.
"Fleep."
"You can say that again."
"Fleep."
In the end, there was no choice. After Mr. Abdul started dancing around, threatening to call the police and saying that there would be disastrous consequences, they gave Kosong the thirty-five dollar rate for all five nights of his stay, plus a fifteen dollar per night de-icing fee. The Adbuls agreed to pay the fifteen percent law when they heard that it was, indeed, the law. In total the brindlefarbs were refunded three thousand, seven hundred and seventy-five dollars.
Mr. Abdul, Mrs. Abdul, Kosong and his three little farbs stormed off with their luggage, giving Nicholas dark looks.
Room cleaning felt especially long that day.
That afternoon, Nicholas and Boon sat on the beach, in the shade of an overhanging palm. To Nicholas it felt like there was an empty patch in the sky, where the brindlefarbs' flying saucer should have been. They had decided to take the rest of the day off.
Nicholas scrolled through his phone absentmindedly. One browser window still showed the Wikipedia article he had been reading, about brindlefarbs. Brindlefarbs, it now read. These bloody lan cheow dirty ang mohs cheat ur money only lah!!!
Nicholas choked back a laugh. The article went on for several incoherent paragraphs. No wonder Boon had seemed so self-satisfied earlier.
He sighed and pulled up the picture of the three little farbs, their little blue bodies suspended in mid-air, spaghetti legs trailing out under them. They looked so happy. And after all, wasn't the hotel business all about making people happy? In the end it wasn't seven hundred a night, but he and Boon had still gotten a decent rate from them. With a little bit of saving and a few more guests this month, they'd still be able to pay the rent and the minimum on Po Po's fees.
"Still worth it lah," he said, flicking his phone off.
They sat for a while. Nicholas let the hot sand run through his fingers, squinting out at the fishing boats and cruise liners.
"Let's go back lah, hor."
"Okay." Boon stood up and brushed sand off his shorts.
They walked back together, not saying much.
At the front door to their hotel, peering in the loc
ked front door, was someone new. A short, slightly chubby Chinese man.
"Who's that?" said Boon.
"Dunno. Excuse me," Nicholas called.
The Chinese man turned and looked relieved to see them. He was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and pleated pants. "Oei. Are you two the owners of this hotel?"
"Yes."
"Ah, good good. Got any vacancies now or not?"
"Got. Two rooms."
"Ah, damn good. Is three weeks too long to rent both rooms? I'm taking my whole family on holiday until Chinese New Year. I tell you ah, I had the strangest luck this morning--an alien came into my convenience store and paid $10,000 for a bottle of Sprite!"
Nicholas started to smile.
"At first I thought you were closed lah--we almost went to the other hotel down the road. But my daughter says this is the best hotel on Pulau Ubin. She stayed here last time. Very hardworking, she said. Good people."
A wave of happiness rose in his chest. "Ah-- we try our best lor."
"Good good." The man put his hands together. "How much per room per night ah?"
Nicholas looked the man up and down. He had shiny leather shoes, pressed pants and carefully combed hair. A large Rolex gleamed on his wrist.
"Sixty is our usual rate," said Nicholas.
© 2013 Jeremy Sim
Jeremy Sim was recently boxed up and mailed to Germany, where he lives with his girlfriend Celine and a cute dog named Rico. He loves video games.
How did you come up with “Fleep?” What stages did you go through in the process of getting the idea down?
I’m not sure myself! This was an experimental story for me in a few ways: it was my first attempt at writing humor, and the first time I’ve written Singaporean characters speaking somewhat like Singaporeans would: using ‘Singlish.’
I wrote the first version of the story at Clarion West, where we had to write a new, complete short story every week. That week, our instructor Minister Faust suggested that everyone try writing humor, and prompted me personally to write a story about cooking. So I was trying my best over the space of a weekend to mash together cooking, sci-fi, and comedy. The cooking part got lost along the way, and I guess this is what I ended up with.
Nicholas and Boon are two of the funniest characters we’ve read about in some time. They mix a sense of slapstick with a significant degree of pathos we can easily empathize with. Are they based on anyone you know? How did you come to realize their characters in the story?
They’re not based on anyone I know, although one of my friends is named Boon Leong and we call him Boon. He doesn’t know I stole part of his name to use, though. (Thanks/sorry Boon!)
The characters themselves are the result of many revisions and a lot of good feedback. I hardly ever know what my characters are going to be like when I start writing them, so in the end I often have to tweak them a lot to fit their roles in the story.
One of the themes of Fleep is that of cultural misunderstanding. What other themes interest you personally in your writing or reading?
I didn’t set out to address any theme specifically, but I grew up hopping back and forth between countries, and I do think cultural misunderstandings are something that should be addressed more in our media. I just moved to Germany in August, and the culture shock is unexpectedly... shocking. We’re all people, but we see the world so differently. We should compare notes more often!
Why write? Surely there are so many other, far easier, things you could be doing?
Books were a huge part of my childhood. I really enjoyed growing up with them, always having new worlds and characters to ponder. I want to pay that back if I can, to write great stories that people can lose themselves in. It’s not the easiest profession, but I think it’s important. Also, you wouldn’t want me to be your doctor. Or your bus driver.
What are you working on at the moment? Where can our readers find more Jeremy Sim?
Incredibly, two of my other Clarion West stories are also being published this year. One will appear in an anthology edited by Nisi Shawl called Bloodchildren. It’s about a middle-aged MMORPG player who finds himself unexpectedly metamorphosing into a dog. Another will be published in CICADA magazine--it’s about two brothers who live in a city besieged by flying crow demons.
I don’t have the exact publication dates yet, but I’ll update on my website (www.jeremysim.com) when I get more information. Also, I have to make my website first.
Ankti Remsi stared at the droplet marring the smooth surface of her shuttle's console. It looked like ordinary condensation. Any other cargo pilot would have wiped it with a sleeve and been done. But Ankti Remsi overthought things.
She wouldn't have said that two days ago. Two days ago she'd still thought of herself as a clever pilot with a solid head on her shoulders. A pilot who'd outlived a dozen colleagues who moved too quickly, went to work without thinking, and got themselves asphyxiated or irradiated or blown to kingdom come. Two days ago she'd been right to think first and act second.
But the world had shifted since then.
Erwin Glastrip had married.
She'd heard the news yesterday in a stopover bar on Erseti. Most of the faces in the bar were familiar: old classmates, pilots who'd come to her for help with repairs, the usual regulars she saw in every pilots' hangout across the Gorsan system. She ordered a drink at the bar and took one of the empty tables near the center, surrounding herself with camaraderie. She listened to the voices at the neighboring tables, hearing what had changed in their owners' lives. She liked hearing about their lives.
Then someone at a table behind her said he'd attended Erwin Glastrip's wedding. A ball of pain punched her hard, right in the middle of her chest. The illusion of camaraderie vanished and she was outside her body, looking down at herself alone. Always alone. She knew what the people around her liked and loathed and wanted, and they didn't even see her. Their lives went on whether she was there to listen or not. She wasn't part of anything. She was invisible, a ghost walking through the world of the living.
In that instant, Ankti knew she would die a lonely death after a lonely life. Even worse, she knew what her older brother Berend would say. Venture it, Ankti.
Easy for a natural conversationalist like him. Impossible for her.
The droplet on her console had grown since she first noticed it. Soon it might compromise console functionality. She could afford to lose nav for a few hours, but she had to have it back online by twenty-one hundred--she was still keeping eastern Erseti time--to fire a precisely calculated subset of the shuttle's thruster array and keep herself on course for Gorsa Prime within fuel limits.
Ankti released herself from her seat webbing and pushed off with the precise force to bring her to a gentle landing at the water recovery unit. No error codes, nothing in the red. Humidity was at a normal forty-six percent; the reservoir was not yet full.
She closed the panel and pushed off back-first toward the console in the center of the cabin, counted to two, then reached a practiced arm behind her and pulled herself in.
Her fingers toyed absently with the bracelet around her wrist as she thought. Why had the tiny half-sphere attached itself there, beside the docking controls? Why on the console at all? Nothing inside it could produce the kind of temperature differential required for condensation. The droplet couldn't be water. So what was it?
Haven't you done enough thinking? Just wipe the damned thing off and move on.
She sat there, her arm tensed but unmoving, nauseated by the thought of taking action before she knew what she was dealing with. The mystery dot was small, and it wasn't going anywhere; she still had time to think things through.
But that’s exactly what you thought about Erwin Glastrip.
ethodically checked every system. She saw her brother’s smile as he pulled his gangly teenage frame into the jungle gym to whisper in her ear. Venture it. Her six-year-old self had only watched the laughing children whirl in their circle game. Ankti remembered the ne
ed to decipher their rules that had kept her fingers tight around the cool metal of the blue and red bars.
Will they like me? She had asked Berend a variant of this question a thousand times, and every time her brother had cupped her cheek or kissed her forehead and said, There's only one way to find out.
Venture it.
But she had been terrified to say the wrong thing, and there had been plenty of time, then.
An older Berend, pulling cinnamon buns from the ovens at their parents' bakery, called out to her as the door chimes rang in the boy from two flats above. Venture it. She had never even smiled at the boy. During his daily visit she busied herself with the lemon cakes and apple tarts in the display case, safely invisible as her mother took the boy's order. There was time enough to figure out the right thing to say. He would be back tomorrow.